


The Value of Me

by Virodeil



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Adventure, Angst & Drama, Fluff galore, Gen, Grey areas, Hurt & Comfort, Unusual Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2018-12-21 17:20:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11948988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virodeil/pseuds/Virodeil
Summary: A blank-slated man with assassination skills, a blank-slated boy with domestic ones, a no-self woman with neither past nor future, a circus little sharp-eyed monkey, a filthy-rich orphan brat, an overrated-but-underestimated superhero… What do they have in common? For that matter, can tools of war and/or villainy bemorethan they are meant to be?Well, here, the name "the Avengers"doesmean something, for one.





	1. How It All Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Timelines and ages will be shuffled about, especially the Marvel side of the equation, both for convenience and because this author still knows so little of this topic. Events in the fandoms involved will be included in the story not wholely and not always in the original sequences either. The author's status as a foreign speaker of English and her lack of time to proofread for herself in detail might prove for a read with interesting word choice and structure, too.
> 
> In short, let's embark in this wild ride, people! :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Brief semi-obscured severe violence in section 5. Please skip the underlined part if you feel discomfited or squimmish about such.

1.

 

30th March 1980

 

Albus Dumbledore stares at the would-be Divination teacher, stunned.

 

Such a double-edged windfall!

 

He fidgets.

 

**… _Vanquish_ the Dark Lord…**

 

He frowns.

 

**…Born as the _seventh month_ dies…**

 

He stares unseeingly at the worn, grimy wall of the Hog’s Head’s private parlour.

 

**… _Neither_ can _live_ while the other _survive_ …**

 

He waves the eager, hopeful girl in gaudy robes and accessories away, promising the hoped-for position at Hogwarts to her in the meantime.

 

She is confused, but utterly elated. He believes it is the least that he can do, for getting such a weapon on hand, when he is just figuratively inches away from utter defeat.

 

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is a tool. _This_ knowledge in particular can help him defeat Tom. That boy’s shinanigans are his responsibility, after all. If only he did not introduce Tom to Hogwarts…

 

**…Die at the hand of the other…**

 

He must prepare, now. He must find the boy spoken in the prophecy. He must make sure that the boy has the tools needed to _survive_ , to _live_ ; or, in the worst kind of situation, to bring the enemy down alongside the boy’s own life. He must make sure the boy knows about responsibility, about humbleness, about the dangers of power and fame, about the sacrifices that one must make, about…

 

“Get out, _now_!”

 

He gives his brother Abe an absently cheerful wave, as he hurriedly exits the Hog’s Head, dogged by the said brother’s semi-vicious ushering spell.

 

**…Born as the seventh month dies…**

 

Seventh month. When is it? In what calendar? It will not be hard to trace such a birth in British magical community nowadays, sadly, so he will just need to determine the time. He surely hopes the boy will not be born out of the United Kingdom. His position in the International Conference of Wizards is already tenuous, given what has been going on inside his borders these days, which has unfortunately spilt into the rest of Europe; he doubts he will not lose all semblance of influence in the international circles if he tries to nab a boy from, say, Finland, or Japan.

 

It is doubtful that he will go to such a length, but…

 

… **Die at the hand of the other…**

 

**…Neither can live while the other survives…**

 

2.

 

31st July 1980

 

James Potter gives the bundle in his arms a sappy look, uncaring that Sirius, his best friend, has just captured the moment in a camera. “Daddy’s boy, Daddy’s boy,” he croons lowly, just for _his_ newborn baby boy’s ears.

 

The said baby boy gives him a sleepy, disgruntled look through a pair of green unfocused eyes – _Lily Flower’s eyes!_ – but _he does not care_. “Daddy’s boy, Daddy’s boy.”

 

Sirius lets out a raucous laugh, joined by the exhausted Lily-Flower with an amused snort from the birthing bed at his side. He still does not care.

 

But he does care when, jolted out of his semi-asleep state by the sudden loud noise, _his baby boy_ erupts into hiccupping cries _again_. “Ssh, Daddy’s boy. Daddy’s going to take care of Uncle Padfoot for you.”

 

A loving kiss from Lily-Flower’s lips on _his_ baby boy’s tiny nose makes the cries peter out. But still, this atrocity cannot be let go, especially when it comes from the precious boy’s own _godfather_.

 

A loving caress on a brandished wand, and Sirius is sent skittering out of the room with a shout caught between terror and thrilled laugh.

 

Serves that mutt right.

 

3.

 

1st November 1980

 

A bundle of blue blanket, accompanied by a note in a parchment letter, arrives at the doorstep of Privet Drive number 4 late at the night of 1st November, 1980. It invites a shrill yelp of surprise from the woman who finds it in the morning the next day, then her tears, as she reads the letter left alongside it.

 

It does not take long for the grief to manifest as anger and resentment. Anger to the world that has just ripped her little sister away anew from her, despite their strong differences since the previous decade. Resentment to the boy who is alive in his mother’s stead.

 

A boy with bright, inquisitive almond-shaped green eyes, just like _hers_ , Lily’s.

 

Just like Lily, but _not_ Lily.

 

She keeps the cold, brief letter included in his blanket in her attic. She keeps the tiny, unwanted legacy of her sister in the cupboard under the stairs, blue blanket and all. Both painful in their own ways, both out of sight. She agrees when her husband Vernon stipulates that the boy – the _freak_ – be kept away from magic and all mentions of his parents. After all, he may be a freak, but he is also her sister’s freak, and her sister is dead because of the freaks in _that_ world. _This_ particular freak is not going to die on her watch, not like her stubborn, far-too-eager-for-the-wrong-things sister.

 

Well, but Lily was the apple of their parents’ eye… Lily, and not Petunia. She swears, now it is _Dudley_ , not Harry – not the freak; Dudley, her own son. She shall never let Dudley experience what she did when growing up with Lily. He shall have _everything_ ; and if she must otherwise take it from her sister’s son, she shall.

 

It is already enough – _more_ than enough – that she has willingly taken the freak in, despite her history with his mother. Those freaks in _that_ community of freaks must have known about the nearly nonexistent relationship she had with her sister, and yet they still _dumped_ him on her; it is not her fault, then, should she treat her nephew less than her own child.

 

 _That boy_ will earn his keep. He will learn that nothing is without a price, in this cold, cruel world. He will learn the skills he needs to thrive alone in his adulthood, because she cannot – _will not_ – be there for him.

 

And still, secretly, Petunia Rose Dursley, formerly Evans, hopes that, wherever the boy will end up once he is out of her family’s hair, he will never know of – let alone join – the freaky community that has robbed him of his parents, heritage and inheritance.

 

He will be safer that way.

 

He will be _alive_.

 

Well, after all, he is still her sister’s child. She wants the best for him, despite everything.

 

4.

 

31st July 1984

 

The cupboard’s door is unlatched with a silent clack. “Breakfast,” comes the shrill demand, next, albeit in a lower pitch than usual.

 

It is early morning, then, or maybe late at night. The orders always come at a lower voice when the other occupants of the house are still asleep or need silence.

 

The tiny pile of bones curled up inside, sparingly wrapped by flesh and muscles and skin that shows signs of ill health, shifts silently and murmurs dutifully like he has been taught, “Yes, ma’am.”

 

He got a dismissive huff for that, as per usual. The thin woman who ordered for his presence in the kitchen leaves, then, and he scrambles out of his cupboard hastily, to go after her.

 

Not a mean feat, that. He has to blink furiously given the difference of lighting, especially the brightness peeking inside from a gap on the front window’s curtains.

 

Early morning, then.

 

Squinting against the light, he stumbles into the kitchen just as the woman’s flowery dressing gown swishes past the doorway. Thankfully!

 

He takes the plastic stepstool from the cupboard under the sink, then carries it to the stove as fast but as carefully as he can. Again, not a mean feat, that, since he has eaten nothing for two days in a row, having been punished for messing up his chores the day before yesterday. The messing up has been done by Dudley, mostly, but he shall _never_ , _ever_ say that to Dudley’s parents. He _does_ want to eat, after all, and the big man gives a mean punishment when angry, usually when freaks like him say or do bad things against Dudley.

 

The thin woman rattles off the day’s breakfast once he is situated on the stepstool, and he listens _very, very_ carefully to that. She tends to punish him, too, if he misses an item or a detail in the meal, or – horror of all horrors – mess up the meal itself. He can do all three meals of the day now, and breakfast is not the hardest to do, but still.

 

Bacon. Boiled eggs. Scrambled eggs. Toasted chicken sandwich. Sausage salad. Melted cheese. Strawberries. Scones. Leftover blueberry pie from yesterday. Sliced bread. Chocolate pudding. Milk. Tea. Coffee. Cream. Got it.

 

Get the cooking oil and water kettle heated first. Boil the eggs next. Go to the pantry and fridge afterwards. Toast the bread while waiting for the oil and water to heat up.

 

Cooking oil ready. Fry the bacon rashers. Fry the sausages. Fry the chicken chunks for the sandwich. Scramble and fry the eggs.

 

Water kettle ready. But so heavy! How to lift it up from the stove, let alone carry it to the table? Arms too weak, too shaky. Too tired. Hungry. Food smells so nice…

 

Try. _Must_ try. Scolded by the woman if not. Scolded by the water if yes…

 

He shrieks. The water kettle falls on top of him, thunking against his head and drenching him from head to toe with its roiling contents. The thin woman shrieks also, but for an entirely different reason, as the kettle clatters loudly onto the floor and boiling water pools round the crumpled little boy.

 

“You, _freak_! You can’t even _boil water_! You wake up my boys with the racket! And now you ruin my kettle too!”

 

*

 

The Freak gets no breakfast, in the end. He got nothing to soothe his many burns, either, as the thin woman drags him outside quickly and drops him at Mrs Figg’s house. She claims to the old woman – his on and off “baby sitter” – that she must prepare “her boys” for a quick outing, and that he has only disturbed her preparations thus far. Mrs Figg clucks her tongue at his raw skin and his sopping-wet baggy clothes, once the thin woman is gone, but she is quickly distracted. She leaves him standing in her cabbage-smelling, cat-smelling living-room, promising to fetch him a burn salve, but she never comes back.

 

Not before his clothes all dry up and his burns sting worse than when they have firstly formed, at any rate. And what she brings in is instead her most beloved cat of all: Snowy.

 

She gives him a small plate of mildly stale cookies, though, and a distracted smile too. So, “Thank you, Mrs Figg.” After all, being polite to everybody and giving no complaint are two of the most important rules in the home of the thin woman, the big man and Dudley; the rest being: do no freakishness, be silent, earn your keep, don’t talk back, don’t be seen whenever possible, don’t touch everything that is not in your cupboard except when you are doing your chores, never steal from other people, and obey everything told by the thin woman, the big man and Dudley.

 

He nibbles at one cookie. Then, when Mrs Figg is not looking, he stuffs the other three into his trouser pocket, thankful that he has mended the large hole in that pocket three days ago. Mrs Figg has given the cookies to him, anyway; this does not count as stealing. This stash can soothe his belly for the rest of the day, or even till three days from now if he nurses it, _if_ he manages to keep it guarded till he returns to his cupboard to store it.

 

He gets to watch the telly, too! This morning is proving to be not so bad, it seems, though his burns still throb and sting mightily. The telly is a black-and-white one, and he can’t find how to turn the channels, so it is stuck on the news channel, but it is more than all right to him. He doesn’t get to watch the Telly in the house where he lives, after all, though he can usually listen from inside his cupboard.

 

He can always pretend that his mum and dad are watching on the threadbare rug on the floor at his either side, maybe with a sibling or three, or even a visiting family friend…

 

He can always pretend that he is home, wherever home is.

 

5.

 

31st July 1985

 

HYDRA’s asset, codenamed Winter Soldier, crouches in a thick, lush bed of some flowery bush under the window overlooking the living-room of its target’s house. Night has fallen quite some time ago, but it is patient, it is invisible. It has scouted round the town, the neighbourhood and the house since 0500 yesterday morning. The target will not elude it. The mission will be successful.

 

The mission: Make a blatant, jarring example of the target’s death, a warning to the company the target works for as sales manager, that nothing and nobody upsets HYDRA. No witnesses, no detection by the authorities. Nothing touched, let alone broken, except for the target itself.

 

It is now 2340. The target at last lumbers away from the living-room, switching off the light on its way. The Asset waits until the target’s wife, too, exits the kitchen farther away and turns off the light there. The target’s child has long retired to bed, lulled asleep before the colourful screen in its bedroom.

 

The Asset moves away stealthily for a better angle to observe the upstairs, where the bedrooms are. A lush tree now becomes its vantage point, situated metres away from the window overlooking the target’s bedroom.

 

The target enters the bedroom and readies for bed first, but the Asset does not take the chance to execute its mission. The target’s wife is still away, most likely in the child’s bedroom, since the Asset can hear soft sounds of adult feet coming from there, beneath the loud snores of the child; the wife can come into the bedroom it is observing any time, thus witnessing its mission execution, creating mission noncompliance. The Asset can afford to wait longer to ensure optimum mission outcome.

 

The wife joins the target in bed at 2350. It lies restlessly there until 0013, at which point it at last seems to be deep asleep.

 

The Asset shimmies down the tree and slinks into the house via the back door, which is the closest ‘proper’ entry point, after relieving itself of its boots to limit evidence on the floor. Utilising its nightvision goggles to compensate for the lack of illumination, it thoroughly investigates every nook and cranny on the first floor, then creeps down the hallway towards the stairs. It slowly climbs the wooden thing to the second floor, testing each step carefully to avoid creating any noise, then repeats the investigation upstairs.

 

The farthest two bedrooms are as empty as its distant visual observation has noted, although one of them holds many broken toys and untouched-looking books. Next door, the child is still asleep in its large, overly cluttered bedroom, although the colourful screen is no longer turned on.

 

And then, the Asset arrives at the target’s bedroom.

 

The wife and husband, like their child, are deeply asleep. However, given its proximity to the target, the Asset holds a breathing mask attached to a bottle containing sleeping gas to the wife’s nose and mouth anyway, to keep it deeper under. To fail now because of such sloppiness would guarantee the Asset severe punishment on the hands of its handlers.

 

And then, it goes to work.

 

The target makes it easier, sleeping still like that, laid on its back. But even if it did not, well, the Asset must have worked with less in prior missions, even if it does not remember such occasion.

 

The fat ankles, legs and thighs are bound tightly together. The no-less fat arms are bound to the obese body in several places: wrists, elbows, upper arms. It leaves just a rather narrow margin on the chest to work on, but the Asset has worked with less, it feels.

 

The gag comes next, making the target snores and snorts louder.

 

Well, the target is going to vocalise _more_ than that pretty soon, anyhow.

Using one of the knives it is equipped with, the Asset slits open the target’s sleepshirt above the heart, so precise that the keen blade grazes neither the closest rope that binds the target together nor the skin underneath. And then, it goes to work.

The target lets out muffled screams, but those sounds are only background noise to the Asset. A simple but delicate sketch of a star forms slowly but surely on the quivering canvas, padded with so many layers of fat that there is not enough colour to brighten the inside of the line.

The Asset remedies that, once the sketch is finished.

The colour is going to spread far out of line soon enough, but the star pattern will still be visible. The Asset has made sure of that.

 

Red star. HYDRA’s star. Everyone will know that HYDRA has visited vengeance on the company, now.

 

The gag and the ropes are duly retrieved. Its work done, the Asset erases the signs of its presence from the room, then creeps back down the stairs.

 

From the other occupied bedroom, the loud snores of the child never change in tempo and intensity.


	2. I Make Do, Always

6.

 

1st August 1985

 

“…You, _freak_!”

 

The thin woman drags the scrawny little boy out of his cupboard – no, she _yanks_ him out of there – without any warning whatsoever. Caught unawares and torn harshly out of a for-once deep sleep, the boy flounders in her grasp, choking for breath as her bony fingers clench round his neck.

 

The sharp smell of fresh blood permeates the air between them.

 

Then their eyes meet, blue on green.

 

For the first time in his life, the boy sees the woman’s eyes gleaming with silent tears, overflowing down her bony cheeks.

 

For the first time in his life, also, he sees only cold, bitter hatred _of him_ in those eyes, so alike Dudley’s and yet not.

 

Somehow, that look totally crushes him.

 

Worse, she then snarls, in a wavering but nonetheless biting tone, scorching like vinegar on raw burns, “There’s no longer place under my roof for you. Be _gone_! I should’ve _never_ taken you in!” She pitches him out of the front door, and the little boy’s bony frame skids painfully on the gravel path.

 

The loud slamming of the door muffles her loud, ragged sobs, somewhat.

 

The scent of fresh blood vanishes with her.

 

The little boy hears it, feels it, faintly, and his own sobs rise up from the depths of his tiny, heaving chest, thick with confusion and loss and _raw-raw-raw_.

 

Something snaps through the early morning air, like when Dudley snipped one of the clothelines and blamed him for that. Instead of lashing out at him, however, it wraps itself snugly round _all_ parts of him, like a cocoon that he once saw wrapping slowly round a caterpillar.

 

It smells of fresh blood, but unlike what he briefly caught in the woman’s vicinity. Familiar blood. It doesn’t feel like anything he can describe or pinpoint or compare with, but it’s _there_ , and it is _intimately familiar_.

 

` _Get up. Go away,_ ` it whispers, or seems to, and he obeys.

 

His feet are bare, and he is down to just a pair of old, oversized undershorts, given the stifling heat of summer nights in the cupboard, but he _obeys_. He does not know where to go, what to do, why he must obey, but he _obeys_.

 

Jabbing gravel shifts into rough pavement soon enough. A while afterwards, it turns into asphalt.

 

It is the farthest the boy ever is from his cupboard, from the house, from the family of three that was his entire world until quite recently. It is the longest time he has spent walking, as he was rarely let out of his cupboard for _anything_. The sights and the smells _and the people_ overwhelm him, but he keeps putting one bare foot before the other. He slinks in and out of foot traffic, hunkering into himself and trying his hardest to be unseen, unheard, untouched, just like when he lived in the house. The cool, dewy morning breezes whip at him mercilessly every so often, but he goes on.

 

He has to. He has to _obey_.

 

*

 

Afternoon brings with it a constant, scorching heat all round. To the boy, it feels like being continuously drenched with boiling water from head to toe. His palid skin, the result of spending too much time indoors to avoid notice by the neighbours, is now red all over. It looks and feels raw, especially when bathed by copious amounts of sweat as it is.

 

He doesn’t know how many times he has fallen onto all fours from sheer exhaustion. He doesn’t know, either, how many times he has hauled himself back up again by sheer will, with increasingly longer and longer time in between spent sprawled on the baking surface – pavement, asphalt, dying grass, cracked dirt, or gravel. The soles of his feet are twin masses of blisters, by now, with grit and tiny chips of gravel thrown into the pus-ridden mix. His knees, elbows and hands have long been scraped bloody, and they are now red from the wounds that bleed rather copiously.

 

People shy away from him, exclaiming in disgust – and some, pity – whenever he nears them. Oh, he knows that. He hears them. His hearing is good, unlike his sight, after all. But then again, even the man and the woman who shared living space with him till this morning were always disgusted and angry with him, so this situation is actually not quite a new experience for him.

 

He just wishes he were back in his cupboard now. The air in there might be stale and hot, but it must be at least a little bit cooler than out in the open like this.

 

But it has been quite a while since he foolishly believed in wishes. He cannot start now.

 

The resolve does not come crashing on him like the woman’s hot frying pan bonking his head. It does not trickle in like syrupy honey in winter, either. Instead, it flows softly but steadily, unintrusively, like the scene of a mountain brook he once spied on the telly while cleaning the living-room round the man and the woman. It carries him in an ever-quicker, ever-larger, ever-stronger current to a destination he is yet to know, but one that he believes is better than the life he has been thrown out of.

 

Better than this self-torture, too. Young and small as he knows he looks, he knows better than to leave wounds dirty and untended, when he can sneak some clean water and whatever first-aid kit he could get to patch them up. Neither the woman nor the man are here now, and the boy has always been resourceful in the first place, necessary for his survival thus far. So…

 

7.

 

2nd August 1985

 

Albus Dumbledore frowns at the delicate contraption currently laid right in front of him. The steady puffs of little red clouds it has always emitted since four years ago has somehow… changed; not diminished, but altered in a way that he still cannot fathom, let alone rectify. It is quite a pity, that the portraits in the Headmaster’s office it’s placed at never noticed it before he did. It is even sadder that he knows he couldn’t have possibly brought the thing with him to the latest week-long ICW meeting, which was wrapped up barely hours ago.

 

Does this merit a trip to Privet Drive number 4? Because he knows, yes he knows this much, quite solidly, that this particular gadget is tied to Harry Potter’s residence. He put a blood ward round the dwelling of that child hero four years ago himself, after all, and built this specific spindly, fiddly thing to monitor it from afar.

 

But the ward is still there. The little red clouds still puff away steadily…

 

A brisk knock sounds on the oaken door of the office, and his eyes reluctantly stray to another contraption nearby.

 

“Come in, Minerva. Lemon pastille?”

 

“No, thank you, Albus. But can you believe the trouble–“

 

The decision is already made for him.

 

8.

 

20th October 1985

 

Yelena Sergeivna Romanova makes do with what she has. Always. She was born twenty five years ago to a world who looked down – still does – on her parents, who had in turn been a pair of Russian-descended fugitives – or Russian- _born_? She can never find out, even now that she is an adult in her own right – from East Germany.

 

Fugitives with _special_ gifts. Gifts that have been handed down to Yelena on the moment of her conception. Gifts that mark her as _different_ from other children, but do not automatically guarantee her a spot in any special school catering to her gifts, unfortunately, for various reasons.

 

People in Great Britain call her a witch, and call her gifts magic. She has it, her parents have it, but they are never sure that their parents, whose bones were sadly abandoned in East Germany, had it. Hence, she is the daughter – only daughter at that – of a pair of “Muggleborn” – those who do not have a long line of ancestry of magic wielders in their families.

 

A daughter of Muggleborn foreigners who have nonetheless always been proud of their ancestry, despite their abandonment of their inhospitable homeland. A second-generation Muggleborn – or is it first generation Pureblood? – in a hidden community that was beginning to look all the more unfavourably on people bearing the status of “Muggleborn” by the time she was eleven, for some unknown reason, while their welcome had never been warm in the first place.

 

She didn’t have enough money to go to Hogwarts, the biggest school for those bearing magic in the United Kingdom, although she did get the acceptance letter to go there. She didn’t merit a scholarship, either, since she was not an orphan or in abject poverty. And since her parents were all Muggleborn foreigners with little root and connection in Great Britain, they could not lobby for her to somehow still make her way there.

 

And with the Cold War still going on fast and intense in the rest of the Western block, while her name, dialect and even looks showed her blood belonged to the opposite block of the mostly nonsensical near-global conflict… It was like being pinched between a rock and a hard place, since the Muggleborn community, whose connections with each other were even more fragile and hidden than the magical one at large, thought her parents were just going to make whatever those people taught her into a weapon for the Eastern Block. Worse, her family couldn’t uproot themselves and go to France in hope that she could enroll at Beauxbaton, Hogwarts’ rival, since the people there were even more hostile to anything and anyone German at that time. And of course, enrolling at Durmstrang, the last of the schooling triad in Europe, would be impossible given her status as the daughter of two Muggleborn.

 

She ended up being tutored by her parents, in between work: hunting down and selling magically repaired furnitures and knick-knacks, and collecting magical knick-knacks found along the way, on the side. However, given the fact that neither of her parents had had sufficient education, both of magical and non-magical subjects, and they had little time and energy to devote to matters other than their work, she ended up learning mostly about transfiguration, charms, runes, enchantment and a tiny side of potions; in other words, skills that could let her lend a hand or a wand or a rune grafter in her parents’ antique shop.

 

Despite everything, she did her best, tried her best, to study all the facets of magic she could get her hand on. She dreamt of enrolling in a formal magical education, still, and was in the opinion that the dream would not be moot until she was seventeen years old, the age of magical adulthood in Great Britain. The moment “the Department of Mysteries” was brought up in passing while she was shopping at Diagon Alley when she was fifteen only cemented the resolve to get her diploma, to attempt to work in that mysterious department as… something, _anything_. She and her parents had come across many odd and wonderful – or wonderfully nasty – things, after all, in their line of work, and she was a curious person by nature, so she thought it would be a good job for her.

 

Well, she had dreams, but she knew reality, especially when, the year afterward, while horrors began to rain in the magical patches of Great Britain and even spilt into its surrounding countries, her life got turned upside down.

 

The Death Eaters, the people responsible for the havoc wreaked across the hidden community of magical United Kingdom, practically stumbled on the shop her family ran, and noticed the power the three of them carried in themselves, despite their inadequate magical education. The black-robed, white-masked men and women – and a few _teenagers_ , she suspected from the voice quality – tried to appeal to their marginal status, to their poverty, to their _curiosity_ , to their safety…

 

“We keep her safe,” was what Sergei, her father, said to the leader of the bullies when they began to threaten his only daughter’s life.

 

In the next full moon, the bullies made a mockery of that promise.

 

She was still sixteen…

 

She is twenty-five, now, and makes do with what she has. Always. The last nine years hasn’t been easy on her, even compared to the ones before, but she perseveres. With her heightened senses and stamina outside of recovery time after the full moons, she takes up all the scoping-out jobs, leaving her parents to deal with the shop-front. After all, if someone from the magical community happens to stumble on their shop _again_ and sees the evidence of her life-changing alteration, she could be in _more_ trouble.

 

Her dream job in the Department of Mysteries is long gone by now, like her life pre-Greyback, but it does not mean – it _never_ means – that she will give up, that her family will be ruined, just because they refused to follow a madman into bloodshed parties and various other horrors.

 

And then, her nose _literally_ leads her into a one-of-a-kind find…

 

9.

 

20th October 1985

 

Autumn is setting in, fast. The tiny, scrawny no-name boy wandering up and down the town has found a tatty, nearly soleless pair of trainers – at least four sizes too large for him – to protect his bare feet, by now; from one of the many rubbish bins scattered at the side of the various roads, streets and paths he has been haunting, of course, since he daren’t step foot into an actual second-hand shop to nick even that much, which freaks like him do not deserve. But still, without any socks, the weather is barely bearable. It doesn’t help that, thus far, he hasn’t found clothes – or at least a shirt – small enough for his use, to go with the Dudley-castoff undershorts he happened to be garbed in when he was thrown out of _that_ house. He really does not know how he has survived thus far, bare-chested as he has been since that day in the summer, but he has been too occupied with finding food, water and shelter to bother with the fact, anyhow.

 

Well, food, water, shelter, _and_ bullies.

 

The other street dwellers usually ignore him. Maybe they have pity on him, maybe they think he has nothing of value on him – which is actually true – or that he is too meek to create trouble; he is thankful of the fact, all the same. But still, there are exceptions to that.

 

Big, loud, mean, weapon-wielding exceptions, who just like to beat little children up for the enjoyment of such a thing.

 

They happen to share the same haunt, and the boy only noticed that after he had escaped the bullies twice, by sheer luck.

 

` _Never again,_ ` he thought, when, in their third encounter, the smallest, sneakiest bully belonging to the gang managed to give him a long, deep, painful cut on his left shoulder with the edge of a rusted blade. He was thankful that he managed to find an undisputed public toilet with running _clean_ water to treat the cut, but the wound had bled copiously before that.

 

So now, when he encounters half of the gang, which sadly includes the sneaky member, he is ready with a shield of rubbish-bin lid. His shoulder is still feeling raw, so he cannot try to climb up the nearest building, and defending himself on the ground like this forces him to improvise.

 

Unfortunately, the raucous clanging created by the rusted knives banging against the rubbish-bin lid attracts some unwanted attention.

 

“Bobbies!” the sneaky one’s pal shouts from his vantage point on the roof of the shop nearby. The four combatants on the ground below jerk to a brief stop, hearing that.

 

But the little boy’s opponents recover far quicker than he does. It doesn’t help that the boy is thoroughly exhausted by now, having to haul about the heavy rubbish-bin lid while dodging three much-larger boys at once, depleting his pitiful store of energy in just one fell swoop.

 

He got jammed into the rubbish bin whose lid he’s borrowed without much struggle, as the result, and his makeshift shield got replaced on the bin with the accompaniment of hoots and snickers courtesy of his erstwhile opponents.

 

The policemen the gang spotted pass the rubbish bin without noticing anything, although the little boy is struggling mightily to free himself from the smelly, slimy pile inside, losing his oversized shoes amidst the rubbish in the process. It is perhaps a good thing, on one hand, since the boy has been threatened with vicious orphanages and merciless police forces for all his living memory, but on the other hand…

 

Well, he just needs to visit the public toilet again, after this, to wash his still-healing cut, and hope madly that the said cut will not be infected. Tears are useless to be had, after all, though this thoughtless cruelty does tug viciously at his eyes like the cut does his shoulder. Retaliation will be a stupid decision, too, though his blood boils at the injustice of it.

 

But _firstly_ , he must free himself from this tiny, dark, awefully smelly thing. It smells far worse than his cupboard when he’d been locked inside there for days! It really doesn’t help that he can barely move now, with his limbs trembling and feeling like Dudley’s jellysticks.

 

And then…

 

“Hello? Who in there? You a cat?”

 

…If the boy could laugh, he would. The female on the opposite – _better_ – side of the rubbish bin sounds kind, curious and amused. He has never encountered such a person previously, and her tone – her _foreign_ tone – does make him want to laugh, somehow.

 

He has never laughed before, as far as he knows, and there has been little to no reason to laugh anyway. He is not about to start now, oh no. For one, he feels too exhausted to even smile; and for two, he is trying with all his might not to inhale too much of the stench permeating the rubbish bin.

 

He tries even harder to break free from the rubbish heap and its container, though. The woman on the other side does seem kind, and maybe she will not mock him or immediately run away from him like the others… She doesn’t sound English, but what does he care about that?

 

The lid of the rubbish bin slides away, and a narrow face leans in, framed by autumn daylight. “Hello? Ah, a boy! Come, come. Let me help you. Poor you…”

 

Her scarred, tired face is the best thing that the little boy has seen since time out of mind, in his exuberant opinion.


	3. The Long, Long Way Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Underlined dialogues are spoken in Russian.

10.

 

10th November 1987

 

The little no-name boy, who keeps being little and still sadly got no name that sticks on him permanently, curls up on the thick-but-tatty rug in front of the small fireplace with a book. Outside, sleet batters everything under the sky mercilessly; but inside, the little boy is surrounded by his more-than caretakers of more than two years, each of whom is occupied with his or her own book. The occasional crackle of the applewood kindling in the hearth meshes well with the rustles of three turning pages, in his never-spoken opinion; it gently interrupts the companionable silence that blankets everything in the small wooden house, unlike the harsh clacking and clattering of hailstones on the roof’s shingles.

 

It is all a usual sight and a usual feeling by now, but the road leading to this milestone has been a rocky, thorny, slippery, potholed meandering footpath; a road that is unfortunately quite likely to persist for some time yet, in his own never-spoken prediction, despite everything.

 

The scarred, tired woman from that lifetime ago calls herself Yelena. Her parents, to whom she brought the little boy upon finding him, call her Yishka.

 

The boy called her Ma’am. He still does, despite her regular offer for him to call her by her name, nickname, auntie, or even Mama.

 

He daren’t tell her, that that last option is too tempting to consider for long.

 

Her parents were outraged, when the woman brought the little boy to the selfsame small wooden house and she told them about her day, that night. At first, the little boy thought they were outraged _at_ him. It was yet another awesome gift for him when he at last understood that they were outraged _for_ him. And the bonus? Even when he was a freak and so filthy and smelly, even when he could not tell them _anything_ about him, including his own name and age, they took turns kissing the top of his mop of messy, greasy head in welcome, anyway.

 

 _Just_ like they did to their own daughter.

 

He went to the back yard for some hosing when the woman’s mother – (“Oh, precious, I am Larisa, but free yourself to call me your grandmother.”) – mentioned that he needed a bath before dinner. This time, the little family of three went into such a tense, sharp-as-a-knife-point silence that it scared him silly like nothing else to that moment.

 

He had neither the heart nor the will to object to the use of the bath-tub and the warm water and the fragrant soap, after that. He knew very well that those were just for good boys and non-freaky people, and he was _not_ – he thinks he still isn’t; however, he wasn’t about to contradict any of them, then, because any _one_ of that family was far scarier than the people in his old life _combined_. It was good – no, scrap it, it was _blissful_ , although he didn’t know about that word at first – actually, to be clean and smelling softly of flowers, for once.

 

Well, he thought it was just for that one time, maybe as a welcome gift of some sort or to lure him into a sense of false security like the three people in his old life had done to him on occasion… He was shocked, to say the _least_ , that the treatment went on, and on, and on, and on, and on… until _today_.

 

And the dinner – oh the _dinner_! The little boy, otherwise called Freak or simply Boy, was for once seated at the rough-hewn, sturdy wooden counter on the kitchen, forbidden to cook or fetch things, and _given a portion of meal all for himself_. The meal wasn’t cold, wasn’t burnt, wasn’t old, wasn’t spoiled in any way, and wasn’t tasteless or otherwise just marginally edible. It was dished out for him, on _his own_ plate, _from the dinner dishes_ , as though he had been a part of their family all his life.

 

He thanked the grown-ups profusely, then hunkered round his plate to shovel as much as he could into his mouth as quickly as possible. Giving him a meal then retracting it abruptly with no reason had been one of the tactics of the people living round his cupboard, after all, and he didn’t think he could bear suffering such a thing right then. Protecting his food like a starving dog would _might_ save him from such a thing.

 

He was half right, at that.

 

“No no no, child, no,” the woman’s mother – whom he is still so, so tempted to call Grannie – scolded him softly as she dragged his plate away, when he had only taken a few sloppy spoonfuls. It felt like being suddenly, unexpectedly drenched in icy water, to him, and he let go of his plate with a jerk.

 

The next split second found him jammed in the cupboard of cleaning solutions beneath the dishwashing sink, shaking madly and trying his best not to cry.

 

 _But_ , unlike Dudley’s parents, these grown-ups did not just let him be, mock him further, or scold him for his sloppy eating and general ungratefulness. The same not-so-old woman from earlier came to the cupboard, _sat down on the floor_ in front of it, then told him softly in a tone he did not recognise from the opposite side of the cupboard’s door, “We would like you to eat, little one. You can eat as much as you can. But you cannot eat too quick. Eat… neat, eat enough, and we will all be happy.”

 

She dragged him out of the cupboard, then, and plopped him at the edge of the sink. She was true to her words, in her own way: She cleaned the spilt food from his cheeks, chin and borrowed shirt’s front with brisk dabs of the wetted edge of a rag, then _spoonfed_ him the rest of the food on his plate, until his tummy ached so much.

 

And then, to his blatant disbelief, although the scene was happening right in front of him, Ma’am’s mother _ate the remaining food that he had not been able to eat_ , as if she had done that multiple times before, as if she was the freak instead of the boy rightly was, as if he could not give his freaky germs to her in that way.

 

“Food is never let waste,” she told him firmly, and he agreed with her, but he _still_ couldn’t – _can’t_ – fathom _why_ she would eat his direct leftover, instead of the other way round.

 

That thought occupied him until, loose-limbed and full-bellied, he was _carried_ by Ma’am to the couch in the living-room, where she proceeded to _plop him in her lap_ to watch cartoons on the telly.

 

He felt like a child – _her_ child – right then, and it overwhelmed him.

 

The next thing he knew, he woke up cuddled to Ma’am side under a warm, worn duvet, in _an actual bed_ , a soft one at that.

 

He bolted into the cupboard under the kitchen sink immediately, because he knew freaks were _not_ allowed on or too close round any worthwhile fourniture of any household.

 

And the family responded to that, although it was not something he had expected, from his previous dealings with the fat and the skinny adults in his previous life.

 

By afternoon, when he returned from being dragged here and there by Ma’am to buy things at his size or meant for children of his relative age, the cupboards and cabinets round the cosy little house were… different. They were either locked fast, demolished and repurposed, or stuffed to the brim with things.

 

In short, he got nowhere to flee or punish himself.

 

Nowhere _on the ground level_ , anyway.

 

Deep at night, when everyone else were asleep, with all the doors and windows locked tight, he snuck himself a perch on the bare rafters. He spent all night awake there, staring vacantly at the empty living-room with glowing ambers on the hearth, fingering the soft, warm, _fitting_ footie pyjamas he had been dressed in after the day’s bath.

 

The next day, Ma’am’s father – (“I am Gregori. Call me Grandfather.”) – did… something, something _magical_ to the rafters, using both his bare hand and a wooden stick that might very well be a wand. A handful of the separate criss-crossing beams were joined together by uneven planks of wood that might have started as detached doorplanks, which he had _summoned_ from the storage shed outside at the back yard. A few battered stools and a dilapidated dining table summoned likewise were straightened and sured up, next, before they were chopped into further sheeting for the rafters – that was the surface of the repurposed dining table – or discrete ladder rungs positioned on one corner of the living-room, behind a curtain of beeds Ma’am had just dug in from the second storage shed. Then Ma’am’s mother, who had been missing all morning, returned with _shrunken_ things that she proceeded to _enlarge_ using the same methods as her husband’s, and the little boy got to see that what she had brought were a soft mattress, a bunch of fluffy pillows, a pile of soft-coloured, soft-textured sheets, and a duvet much like Ma’am’s.

 

And just like that, the little freak got a _bedroom_ for himself, and it was _perfect_ ; not because the new floor was strong and just rugged enough to prevent slipping without making it uncomfortable, not because he got _a bed_ for himself with all its trappings, but because… well… _it was perfect_. It still is, even now, even when he has grown up a little, height-wise, and got far closer to the family than he was in those days.

 

From his perch, something that he later got told has been sured up and reinforced for safety and comfort using magic, he can be by himself without removing himself from what he has long considered his home and family. From such vantage point, he can also observe everything inside and outside of the house without being seen or heard, which comforts him a lot.

 

This last point was in fact a Christmas gift – _one of the Christmas gifts_ – for him from the family, barely a couple of months after he had gotten a bedroom, those couple years ago. It has been his first and best Christmas gift _ever_ , winning even over the name Nikolai – or Nosha – that they collectively bestowed him with, which was the other Christmas gift that year. After all, that day, the rafter network of catwalks and nests got extended to _everywhere_ in the house, and he got to _help_ in achieving that with the powers he had not known he had, and he was _not_ called a freak or an abomination of life for that, _and_ from that day onwards the family sometimes spend time with him up there.

 

He was glad – he _is_ , still – that he finally got a name for himself, plus a nickname at that, but people could twist and interpret names so easily; Ma’am’s father’s occasionally calling him “Boy” in either English or Russian or German, case in point, which never sounds nor feels demeaning or hurtful. But _this_ , it’s hard to make this gesture as a way to shunt him aside, like the adults in his old life locking him in the cupboard under the stairs in their house, not when these trio of adults _join him there_.

 

Here, with this family, in this home, the little boy is not a freak, and his preferences are not freaky, and the powers he has been born with are _not_ an abomination on the proper things in the world, and he does deserve companionship. The family did not tell him this; they _showed_ him, and it has stuck fast with him, because his mind could not refute what was already apparent and so tangible all round him.

 

Here, he is also taught many, many things, in addition to helping round the house, the shop, or all about outside the family’s little bubble of bright, warm life, which never feel demeaning or like a chor at all each time. In fact, receiving good things with proper gratitude but no fuss, in addition to doing household chores as a way to contribute to keeping up the home instead of earning his keep, was the first thing he consciously learnt from living with this family. He is still wary of strings that might be attached to gifts or acts of good will, even now, but Ma’am’s parents have long agreed that he needs to maintain a good, healthy level of wariness so that he will not be trapped or cheated by anybody, anyway, so he considers this a habit to continue and nurture.

 

He learnt Russian and German by dint of everyday exposure, at first, because the family often forgot to speak in English between themselves or to him, especially when they were in a hurry. In fact, his first Christmas gift to them was a brief, stilted, stumbling conversation in a jumbled mix of Russian and German that he studied just by quiet observation. The rest was history, so to say, including learning to read and write in both languages and English. Since then he has also acquired some French, Spanish and Italian from the places the family keep bringing him, singly or as one, whether for work – acquiring more fourniture and others to repair and resell – or pleasure – usually to museums, parks, natural reserves, or just small restaurants with cuisines from round the globe. This exposure to the outside world also made him – and the family who had taken him in, in turn – aware of visiting zoos as a small no-no.

 

He can never bear looking at cages, especially small cages compared to their inhabitants. They remind him too much and too strongly of himself and his old cupboard.

 

Magic-wise, his studies have been progressing alongside reading, writing, math and other formal-schooling subjects that the family are relatively competent in, such as geography, basic chemistry and more general natural sciences. He has been learning a few sets of ancient runes alongside Latin and Cyrillic lettering, the study of which has long passed the latter sets given their intricacies and sheer number. Chemistry goes well alongside potions and cooking, and this has always been made fun by Ma’am’s father by inserting occasional little explosions or bright arrangement of colours into a mixture. Arithmancy, likewise, goes well with mundane maths, although there are variations and differences between the two that sometimes create confusion, hence difficulties.

 

But his love of all times is spellwork and enchantments, ever since the family have shown him magic for the first time by repurposing the rafters to be his nest, two years ago. This love has been further encouraged by Ma’am whenever she makes her wooden dolls – whittled by her father and clad in doll clothes knitted by her mother – dance on the makeshift stage, which doubles as the kitchen counter and the dining table. She uses delicate movements of her fingers or even her wrists to manipulate the dolls and props without touching them, and it is _enchanting_ , in both senses of the word that he knows. Watching Ma’am’s large fingers and sturdy-looking broad hands do such graceful, delicate motions is a treat on its own, and he has often caught himself watching her hands instead of the play she is enacting on the little stage. Ma’am is often self-conscious about her “man-like” hands and arms and shoulders, and has once confessed that she was ever laughed out of an audition for ballet classes because of that; the boy wishes she could _see_ for herself how lightly and beautifully those mocked appendages _dance_. The people who laughed at her were _idiots_.

 

Well, it is not like he is not or has never been an idiot, himself, per se. He got incited into fights so easily by the local bullies, and by other bullies in the places where Ma’am or the whole family bring him, too, usually by mocking Ma’am’s physique or Russian speech. He got into trouble with the local authorities and the family because of that, while the bullies mostly got off scot-free, to the point that, fed up with his hot-headed ideas of righteous and chivalrous defence, Ma’am taught him how to act aloof and stride away with dignity. – (“Besides, dear, if you get angry at every bad thing, you will spend your life being angry. Being angry is tiring and makes you older faster. You will never have friends, too, this way.”)

 

Knowing that the boy got into trouble mostly to defend his daughter, Ma’am’s father also taught him how to pay the bullies back discretely. – (“The enemy you do not know and cannot see is the enemy you cannot harm.”)

 

Better yet, Ma’am’s mother enrolled him into karate classes, as an “on-going Christmas gift” since last year, with the proviso that he _never_ use the acquired skills to bully people. – (“ You would not like the consequences if you do, Noshenka.”)

 

And for it all, he insisted he die his hair red to match Ma’am and her father, since last Christmas, and learn sewing and knitting much as he can to please her mother. They insisted he be called Feliks, after that, arguing – perhaps ridiculously, but all the warmer and more intimate for that – that now he looks and behaves like a Feliks. Nikolai _and_ Feliks – he is getting richer each Christmas!

 

The troubles also taught the little boy that discipline is different from punishment, that withholding whole meals for the day from a growing child is never an acceptable consequence of making or being in trouble, that locking a child in a small space for days on end for that purpose is also abhorrent. Ma’am and her parents are certainly strict to him, and he _always_ hates the disciplinary actions they sick on him, such as withholding his pleasure reads and his access to their toolbox of rune grafters, but they never beat him or lock him away or starve him for days on end.

 

Well, he got rapped on the fingers with whatever kitchen or baking utensil in use at that time, whenever he got caught trying to steal the finished product before it is dished out at the table, but that is totally worth the pain!

 

And back to today… He _loves_ days like this. Not because it is a bad-weather day; oh no, not at all; he shivers just by imagining still being a street child under such weather, and he desperately hopes all the street children that has not been as lucky as he was got into shelter in time. He just… Well, the sleet and rain and more sleet that were predicted for today, that sadly have come true, force _everyone_ to take shelter, including the family and himself. They do not get many days like this, since Ma’am’s parents and Ma’am herself need all the money that they can get, both to keep the family surviving from day to day and to save up for just in case; it must have been harder when he was added into the mix, although the family are always upset and angry with him whenever he slips up and claims he is a burden to them. Therefore, sitting here, leisurely, just the four of them, is priceless and cosy beyond belief.

 

He shall never exchange this for anything in the world.

 

11.

 

11th December 1987

 

Yelena stands at the door, watching and listening to the scene unfolding in the kitchen with quiet awe and deep satisfaction. She was out picking the last batch of this year’s parsnips and potatoes for today’s meals from her family’s little greenhouse, and now she finds… _this_.

 

The little boy that she found in a rubbish bin two years and two months ago, whom she dubs Doshka for the name Fiodor in her mind for its closeness to her father’s name, is _singing_ , by _himself_ , and thus without prompting. Oh he sang along with her or any of her parents at times, quietly and at first hesitantly, but he never did it alone, and never began it by himself either.

 

It is possible that he simply does not realise that he is singing, since he seems preoccupied with trying to figure out where she has hidden the jar of saltine crackers that she baked with him yesterday. But _still_ , it shows how far he has come, from that tiny pile of bones and palid skin who was afraid of _everything_ to… this: still thin, still tiny, still mostly quiet and hesitant, still overly fond of his overhead roost, but no longer so skinny and skittish, no longer seeking the nearest small, dark space to punish himself for real or imagined mistake or trouble.

 

The Doshka from two years ago barely spoke, knew nothing about the world at large, could not read and write and count in his own language. ` _Now see him,_ ` she thinks, with a huge bubble of warm achievement stuffing her up inside. ` _He is singing, **In Russian**!_ `

 

Not to mention, the Doshka from two years ago would never dream of trying to steal something an authority figure had expressly forbidden him to have…

 

“Are you looking for the crackers, little one?” she interrupts gently from her vantage point.

 

The little boy, having just finished the song he has been singing, squeaks and whirled round. He looks guilty and sheepish, but mostly unafraid; yet another huge difference from that timid little waif from the rubbish bin those years ago.

 

She grins, and winks at him. “My bedroom, my love. You can be so predictable, sometimes. You may have two pieces, but do not drop crums on my bed! And give me a hug first for my troubles, eh?”

 

His almond-shaped green eyes, now so lively and bright, almost like a normal child’s, sparkle in delight. “Thank you, Ma’am!” he chirps, returning her grin. He gives her his best bearhug round her middle, as per requirement, then dashes past her, allowing her just enough time to ruffle his red-died – (“So I’ll look a little bit like you, Ma’am! If you don’t mind?”) – hair with her free hand.

 

She stares wistfully at the empty living-room, across which the little boy – _her_ little boy – has just streaked past on a beeline to her bedroom on the opposite side of the small house, humming the same song he sang before all the while.

 

It is time, it seems, or soon will be. She wishes that she did not have to do this, that he would remain fully _just hers_ , that he would be like a new person as if born to her womb. But it would not be fair for him, would it? He _deserves_ to know, after what his previous excuses for guardians have done to him. He _needs_ to know, so that he can keep his head down and keep away from the unwanted attention of the world which chucked him away six years ago.

 

After all, even when he was a bare-chested, bare-footed pile of bones and palid skin she fished from a rubbish bin, she almost immediately noticed his messy black hair, his vivid green eyes, and the lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. She had never been close to or well informed about the magical side of the world, nor was she, nor _is_ she, but even a semi-total outcast like her has heard the rumoured details pertaining to Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, British magical community’s saviour.

 

The boy had been dubbed a world hero, then left behind in a dump of the arguably worst kind, before he ended up in a _rubbish bin_ in reality.

 

Well, if she looks at it this way, the information about the poor little one’s past will be all the mor crucial for the said little one himself to know, if only so that he will never be used like a tool and then discarded until the next occasion comes by. She has talked extensively about this with her parents, and they support her decision, but _still_.

 

She can only sigh, and hope that this bombshell will not make an absolutely terrible Christmas gift. She has the name – _this_ name, Doshka – she has decided to bestow on him as the other gift, but _if_ he got so mad with her that he ran away…

 

She shakes her head, strides into the kitchen, and dumps the basketful of parsnips and potatoes with unnecessary vigor on the wooden table on the middle of it.

 

What will be, will be. At least, if he decides to flee her presence now, he will be a little bit wiser about the world, and has many more tools to use to survive in it than when he began two years ago.

 

It is always a mother’s hope, is it not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A question: Shall I mark the dialogues spoken in Russian differently, or are they already apparent in the story?
> 
> Also, I apologise, especially to Russian or Russian-speaking readers out there, if I nicknamed Yelena and Fiodor wrongly. I watched a couple of YouTube videos regarding the topic, but they only outlined the process of giving diminutive attachment to names without giving more specific details. Please correct me if I erred. And again, my apologies, folks.


	4. The End of a Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Minor character deaths.  
> Note: Underlined dialogues are spoken in Russian.

12.

 

12th December 1987

 

“We have to do something, Albus. _Twelve_ attacks in _twelve_ days! These people having handing out _Fiendfyre_ as if they were _Christmas toys_!”

 

Minerva McGonagall – Deputy Headmistress, Professor of Transfiguration Class, Head of Gryffindor House, and Albus Dumbledore’s protégé – slams the door behind her, as she stalks into the Headmaster’s office in high dudgeon.

 

Albus Dumbledore can only let out a sigh to that. He has been anticipating this for days already. He has been trying his best to beg for aid from the Ministry of Magic for the whole twelve days that she has just mentioned, but they didn’t believe that the Death Eaters are active once more and targetting Muggleborn or Muggle-raised pre-school children.

 

But then again, the victims have nearly all been _Muggles_ … No wonder they have been turning a blind eye on these alarming activities.

 

Worse… Well, Albus has a _worse_ thing to say to Minerva. He found this out days ago, true, right on the first day of the attacks in fact; but he has been involved in trying to contain the Fiendfyre from spreading across the whole unfortunate Muggle neighbourhoods being attacked at the given day to tell her anything.

 

Besides, he has been dreading her no-doubt oncoming castigations.

 

But _today_ , the Fiendfyre got loosed on a specific Muggle neighbourhood, one that Minerva unfortunately knows very well, and could easily _find out for herself_ , soon enough.

 

He dreads _that_ chance even more.

 

So… “Minerva, could you please sit down for a moment?”

 

She gives him a fiery, penetrating stare that, he has to admit, daunts him a little. He _doesn’t_ like to get witches angry. Bellatrix Lestrange, case in point… and now Minerva.

 

But she seats herself down across from him, at least. So he begins, after a deep, fortifying breath, with his Occlumency shields at a maximum and his most solemn expression on.

 

“I went to see Harry Potter today.”

 

Minerva looks torn between annoyed, eager and confused.

 

“I have a good news and a bad news for us all.”

 

The confusion deepens; the eagerness lessens; the annoyance flares up high; and now, sharp attention joins the maelstrom of emotions. “Tell,” she demands, her accent pronounce.

 

Albus sighs. He misses her defference. But, he supposes, this is better than outright fury… which may still explode in a moment…

 

“The bad news is,” he swallows and forces himself to keep looking into her eyes, “I talked to his relatives… and they said he has run away two years ago.”

 

He flinches back – he cannot help it! – as Minerva shoots up to her feet, letting the heavy chair she has just been seated in topple backwards.

 

“ _ALBUS_!” she thunders.

 

The addressed man palms his best wand in the holster hidden beneath his wide robe-sleeve. “He is still alive, Minerva,” he tries to assure her. It’s a pity that no Confundus would stick to a Minerva on a war path… He tried it, a long time ago.

 

“I cannot find him. We can count it as good, I suppose,” he continues. “He is healthy, that much I know. And if we cannot find him, he has a good chance of being undetected until he is eleven years old.”

 

Minerva’s nostrils flare. Albus slides the Elder Wand free from its holster and surreptitiously points it at her.

 

He lets the subsequent outraged protests she spills forth pass his ears, as he tries to grasp the idea he has just had; something that could help him deal with these rogue elements of the Wizarding World, that might also help him in tracking Harry Potter down, that would appease Minerva at the same time. He needs the best soldier and tracker possible for this, preferably both in one person. The Colonies had a few such people during the Muggles’ Second World War, if his memory doesn’t fail him. If only…

 

“ _ALBUS_!”

 

…Ah, yes, Minerva.

 

13.

 

19th December 1987

 

Albus Dumbledore surveys his magically charged surroundings, stunned and exhausted. In his stubborn grasp, the Elder Wand thrums violently, hot as a bar of iron ready for tempering and icy as a chunk of permafrost.

 

The summoning ritual is borderline dark, yes, as nearly all rituals are. But there was never a word that it could _fail_.

 

But now, he is left with a crater in the middle of Stonehenge, a broken leeline that he is not sure will return to normal again even in the next century or ten, a weirdly behaving Deathstick, and four _dead_ members of his Order of Phoenix.

 

Elphias Doache, Sturgis Podmore, Emeline Vans, Hestia Jones: North, East, South and West on the ritual corners, respectively, and dead on their feet, still as statues, with their wands outstretched and stunned looks etched permanently on their faces.

 

Grief and guilt try to bubble up, threaten to crush him, demand his attention. But he must be strong, he must _stay_ strong.

 

It is all for the greater good.

 

Now, he must search for whatever he has summoned and make the deaths of these good people worth their sacrifice. Maybe he is too old for conducting rituals like this; maybe his Occlumency shields were inadequate for this taxing event, as he can feel their tatters jabbing into his numb mind, creating a biggger headache; maybe it was wrong, to focus on _both_ a soldier for his Order and a tracker for Harry Potter; but it has all been the past, as of now, and he doubts a turn of the Time Turner would fix this… unexpected outcome.

 

Besides, if his future self interfered, wouldn’t he have told him, by now?

 

And still, despite his conviction, shaky though it is, bitterness lingers in his mouth.

 

No cleaning and tracking weapon acquired; no result. Four people who believed in him, dead for _nothing_.

 

14.

 

20th December 1987

 

Night has fallen down long ago, but the little boy perched on one of the beams of his home’s rafters – his _home_! What an idea! – is still as jittery as in the afternoon. Maybe he should not have drunk that much hot chocolate with extra marshmallows… But the day was chilly and the marshmallows were too awesome to leave out!

 

He grits his teeth and moves away from the living-room via the interlocked beams all round him. The sight of his bedroom loft above the room, quite within reach and still as inviting as ever, seems to mock him now that he _still_ cannot bring himself to even close his eyes and stop moving for a moment.

 

The beams above the kitchen is his next haunt, and the large, sturdy wooden table on the middle of it attracts his attention, as per usual. After all, much of his life and most of his _nice_ first-times have occurred there or thereabouts. He ate his first proper meal – a proper _family_ meal at that – there, and since then has been helping his guardians in cooking and baking _by his own volition_ at or round the same place. Ma’am brings out the hand-made dolls and props into play on the broad, rugged surface whenever she is in the mood and not feeling so tired. Ma’am’s father teaches him messy works like simple engineering, whittling and basic footwear repairs there, too, to the constant aggravation of the womenfolk in the family. – (“ This table is for _cooking_ and _eating_ , not playing with oil and wood-chips and _dirty things_! ”) – that they have privately agreed is worth the fun. Ma’am’s mother, meanwhile, always decorates the self-same disputed area simply but nicely whenever they hold deliberate schooling sessions for him there, which makes the interesting lessons even more entertaining.

 

His hands itch for the rune grafters and a piece of soapstone to work on, remembering that. Oh, no. No, no, _no_. He nearly burnt down the kitchen last month, when he snuck a self-taught lesson on runes during the afternoon when everybody else happened to be out… He has never been trusted with free access to the rune-making toolkit ever since, neither has he been left alone wherever he goes during the day, for the same duration.

 

He shudders.

 

Tomorrow is a full month after that incident, and the trio of adults have agreed that they will at least not shadow him anymore after that…

 

` _Shall I risk it?_ ` Is this late-night foray worth the sheer discomfort of dragging one – or _all_ – of the adults _wherever_ he goes for yet another _month_?

 

He shudders again.

 

` _No, no, no._ `

 

But at the same time, his lips quirk in a reluctant but fond smile. Trust the Romanov family to give him the worst punishment _ever_. Being unfed for long stretches of time is still _less_ horrifying and torturous than _that one_ , especially when coupled with the lack of easy access to his beloved rune grafters.

 

 _His_ rune grafters, yes, although they are technically the family’s. It’s unofficial-like, but they are _his_ , by now, with how much and how fondly he has been using them inside or outside schooling sessions. And how marvellous it still feels even now! Having things that are _his_.

 

But maybe, _just_ to soothe his itchy sticky-fingerness… There is a small jar of candied honey amidst the medicinal potions in the left-hand overhead cupboard above the kitchen sink…

 

He leaps nimbly down onto his adored table, then across to the long wooden counter beneath the target of his latest impromptu mission. He is very, very grateful now that a lot of trial-and-errors have gone into this skill of his, perfected when neither of the adults are about. He could have been banned from exercising his froggy might – like he’s been banned from playing with the runes – if they knew! After all, many, many bumps and scrapes and crashes have been had during the first stages of the learning, given his poor eyesight, also lack of safe environment to monkey about in before he met the family. If he crashed onto the floor or against the wall _now_ for lack of distance and muscle-power judgement, the grown-ups would wake up and…

 

He shudders, just thinking about what they would make him _not_ do as punishment. No baking and eating snacks? No learning to fence with wooden sticks like Ma’am’s parents has been teaching him these couple of weeks or so? No sleeping in his beloved loft?…

 

He huffs softly and peers out of the row of small windows set on the wall beneath the overhead cupboards. (To “maximise” – “provide all that is possible in something,” he remembers – the light coming into the kitchen and other areas of the little house.) Leaping about makes him want to go out and play with the climbing frame Ma’am’s father has been building just beyond the couple of storage sheds that they have, and trying to conceal from little Nosha while he’s at it; but it’s snowing hard outside, and he’s garbed in pyjamas now, _and_ trying to take his winter gear from Ma’am’s bedroom would be a suicide mission of the highest calibre.

 

Is something moving, though, outside? Not snow? Not trees either?

 

He is growing uneasy. Both the candied honey and the half-finished climbing frame are quickly forgotten.

 

So many movements outside, now. But the snow has been plopping onto the whitened ground right from the black sky, almost in a straight line, which means there’s no wind to stir the snowflakes, so the trees _shouldn’t_ be moving, which means…

 

He barely has time to yelp, when a pair of arms seize him from behind and yank him away from the wall counter. It’s fortunate that he remembers Ma’am’s scent and body and his unknown assailant matches her, or he would raise such cacophony that the family would be woken up, as they have instructed many times for some reason.

 

But Ma’am’s parents are indeed awake, without him having to raise any fuss, and standing by a trapdoor he never knew before, which makes for a yawning dark hole on the living-room…

 

…And there they go, down leaping into the darkness one by one…

 

…And a huge “ _BOOM!!!_ ” deafens him, just after Ma’am’s father has managed to close the trapdoor.

 

He can _feel_ the intense heat raging right above, _in the house proper_ , that comes after the sound.

 

But now there’s a hard thump on the gritty floor of the underground room, then another, then _another_.

 

The little boy is dropped unceremoniously onto the same floor, right on top of the two unmoving bodies that preceded him, as his holder drops down in like manner.

 

Unmoving. Not breathing.

 

Nikolai Feliks _screams_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, can I hear your opinions... Should the Romanov family live?  
> I'm not satisfied with the first two parts in this chapter, but you would wait for too long should I keep tinkering with them; so, I guess, I would rather have your opinion on those parts. My mind has been beaten into mush by my on-going thesis project nowadays...  
> Last but definitely not least, thank you so much for sticking up with me thus far, and for your tokens of appreciation! :) Highly appreciated.  
> Rey


	5. I Can't Care Less

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, apologies for the lengthy silence for this fic. I've been much distracted by my thesis work, and also by new ideas for other fics.
> 
> Secondly, thank you so much for Ravenrain for helping me by answering the question in my note at the end of the last chapter. Now my muse has the direction it needs, away from the dilemma it's been waffling for these past weeks. I hope you'll all be fine with this decision.
> 
> Thirdly, a reminder that underlined dialogues in the chapter are spoken in Russian.
> 
> Fourthly… Who wants to see a certain mischievous alien prince soon in here? He's unleashed a particularly rabid plotbunny in my head, which multiplies all too quickly, and I have to get rid of its numerous offspring somewhere, in some way. -- And, somewhat unrelated to the topic, just another reminder: I'm AU-ing most of the timelines and events in the Marvel-verse anyway.
> 
> Well, regardless, enjoy!

15.

 

20th December 1987

 

Some magical jolts to the chest, as Ma’am’s mother has instructed the boy in one of his first-aid lessons some time ago, restores his family’s breathing and heartbeats. They still do not wake up, though, even after he has poured as much magic into them as he can. And now, he feels so faint from magic loss, with nothing to show for it.

 

Still, they _cannot_ stay here. Even now, in the total silence, he can hear the stonework above the four of them _crieking_ ominously. He doesn’t want himself _and_ his family to be here _when_ the stonework fails.

 

So, with all – the remnants of – his physical and magical might, he begins to drag them one by one down the stone-and-dirt tunnel – the only one, thus far, as far as he can see – snaking away from this priorly unknown underground chamber. It… helps, kind of, that there’s some sort of discrete conveyance belt made up of stone tubes and railing, on the middle of the narrow path, that seems to activate when there’s a body laid on it.

 

It makes him wonder, though… Has his family thought of – _prepared for_ – this occasion? And if so, _why_ haven’t they told _him_?

 

The total silence and the repetitive, physically and magically taxing movements give him all too much time and chance to brood. It doesn’t help, _at all_ , that he has nearly lost them a scant time ago.

 

With all that is going on and his level of distraction, it can be forgiven, thus, that he _almost_ forgets to magically and physically check what is round him every few metres or so, as Ma’am’s father has always taught him in one of their lessons on tracking and wariness.

 

In one of those checks, he is thankful – and therefore less mad – with his… well, _grandfather_ , because _here_ , in an alcove in the left wall hidden by a physical stone slab and a magical doorknob ward, he finds a bunch of Pepper-up potions in vials in a drawstring leather pouch, as well as another pouch that seems to contain miniaturised trunks.

 

He can do with some Pepper-up, right about now.

 

*

 

There are tunnels, branching every which way. Nosha has left his unconscious family wrapped in the rolls of sleeping bags from the last alcove he’s found, safe under a portable lattice arrangement of protection wards, and since then he’s gone adventuring down the tunnels. The magical tracing threads he leaves behind on each and every step are the only guide that he has, aside from the magical and physical senses that he possesses. He maps the tunnels this way, and finds a few facts that intrigue and upset him at equal measure.

 

Firstly, the ends of the tunnels are _not_ equidistant to each other, judging from the length of each thread compared to the other, cut down to straight lines. There is a trapdoor at each end, so these tunnels are escape routes too, to varying points that make it harder for the enemy to patrol or set up an ambush.

 

Secondly, he’s found _identical_ supplies in _identical_ alcoves set in _identical_ distance from each trapdoor, which means the supplies have indeed been left there _deliberately_ , with much forethought – or maybe even _anticipation_. He’s taken them all, of course, regardless of their initial purpose – or _purposes_ – but still…

 

It doesn’t help his scattered thoughts and emotions that he finds the stone conveyance belt, made to run smoothly and automatically by a mix of magic and mundane scentless and durable oil, running down _each and every_ tunnels that he passes through.

 

And _now_ , as he’s just finished mapping them all, he finds that all these tunnels originate from the just-collapsed trapdoor beneath the living-room he and his family have originally fallen down from.

 

His family prepared _so extensively_ for this day, it appears, and _they didn’t tell him_. He couldn’t have prepared together with them; he couldn’t have prepared for this day _at all_ ; and now he, a _seven-year-old_ boy, is in charge of the care of three unconscious, magically spent grown-ups.

 

If he knew this day would come, he would take care to have his most-prized possessions _always_ on his person or nearby, and he would take care that the tunnels would be stocked up even better.

 

Well, if he knew this day would come, he would’ve had a _very_ hard time to sleep each night and to study or play each day, too, but he can’t care less about it right now. He just wants to feel _angry_ – at himself, at Ma’am – she’s _his mother_ , damn it – at the elder Romanovs, at the unknown assailants, at the house for breaking down over its occupants…

 

His cheeks are wet, his eyes are burning, but he can’t care less about that, _too_.

 

16.

 

22nd December 1987

 

Yelena wakes up in a soft, comfortable bed, greeted by equally soft white-yellowish light that doesn’t hurt her unaccustomed eyes. The scent of a magically saturated wooden place has long settled in her bones, and thus it is not a new thing to find upon her awakening, unlike… _these_.

 

She is in a magically expanded trunk, that much she knows, but it smells _new_ , unlike the one her parents brought from Germany, the one that they often used in their longer travels, before Doshka came into their lives.

 

Doshka…

 

She sits up and moves away from the bed in one fluid movement, expertly disregarding the bone-deep exhaustion lingering in every particle of her being. – _Doshka_! Where is he? She cannot catch scent of him, although the scents of her parents have been nearby, and now she can see that they are lying – or have been laid? – in their own beds at either side of hers.

 

She searches all over the trunk turned flat, but what she can find are only the usual amenities and rooms one can find in any basic specimen of such trunk. Nothing has been touched, save for the storeroom at the far corner opposite the trapdoor that leads outside. And again, there, the only missing or disturbed things are bed-kits and beddings.

 

She streaks towards the trapdoor, biting her lip so as not to yell for her parents to help her find Doshka, then begins to frantically weave her magic for her most potant array of detection and diagnostic spells. The harsh thumping of her heartbeats matches the throbbing, merciless draw on her innate power, but she can’t care less about it.

 

The last events in her memory have begun to trickle back into her consciousness, that is why, and now she rightfully fears Doshka is too upset with her and her parents to care about leaving them behind.

 

But no, he is outside, if farther from the trunk than she feels comfortable with, let alone desires.

 

And he is getting farther away, in a mix of ill health and _upset-curious-defiant_ …

 

The detection and diagnostic spells drop away even as a switching spell replaces them; the fastest and neatest yet that she can do, with her in a panicked state like this at that, but she can’t care less about it, as well.

 

Long legs and determined speed carry her far, eating the ground faster than Doshka’s little, stumbling legs. Winter’s chill bites at the few patches of skin unprotected by her dragonskin armour, but now she can see that Doshka is _wholely_ unprotected from the merciless weather, and a far icier sting eats away at her heart.

 

Before she can call out to him or stop his determined path in any other way, though, a building made entirely of metal appears briefly from amidst some morning fog, and she instead speeds up quietly, with her heart beating in her throat.

 

Because that building, whatever it is, she doesn’t want Doshka to come in there, _ever_.

 

She can _smell_ the pain and fear and desperation and hopelessness and helplessness _from here_ , tens of metres away _in the winter fog_. Her wolf _howls_ for her cub.

 

*

 

Doshka is an _unstoppable force_ when he _truly_ wishes for something, Yelena finds out only now, after _two years_. With all his current fragility and general exhausted ill health, he has managed to dodge _both_ her wolf-strengthened, wolf-sped hands _and_ the tendrals of magic uncontrollably lashing out from her. And with it, he has managed to _enter the building_.

 

What could she have done, then, but to enter after him?

 

And the things she found inside, just now; the things that are _still_ surrounding her even now, choking her up and _drowning_ her in misery so thick and palpable that she wonders why Doshka seems not to notice it.

 

There are running generators on the four corners of the one-room big metal _cage_. There is a large recliner-type chair – _with **restrains** and suspicious stains_ – to the far right adjacent to the door. What looks like a shower area – but with a set of jet _hoses_ instead of a normal shower hose – lies opposite the ominous chair. _And_ right opposite the door, where she and Doshka are standing before now, lies an aquarium-like thing, somewhat curved with glass sheeting and metal frame, _but_ the sole occupant there is _not_ any kind of fish or other water-bound creature, nor is the content of the thing _water_.

 

“Doshka,” she whispers, tremulously, past the lump in her throat, past the weakness that seems to be claiming her _fast_.

 

Because Doshka – her boy, her _son_ – is standing out here as if he has been doing it for the past whatever time she has spent insensate; _alone_ , staring at the naked _person_ trapped before them in the _ice_.

 

Alone, because _she_ and her parents had never thought of a contingency plan that would leave one of them conscious to take care of him. Alone, because _she_ and her parents had trusted him too much to be mature, while he is still _seven years old_ , however mature he is for someone of his age.

 

“Doshka, I’m sorry.” – The damage has been done, the time cannot be wound back, and now she stands swaying here with him, staring at the silent tableau of deliberate cruelty, but she _needs_ to say it, to tell him she would take it all back if she could.

 

She can no longer stand on her feet when, instead of acknowledging her apology by any way, his response – deadened and broken and oh so wrenchingly _lost_ – is, “ It’s been two days, Mama. I found him here. I found papers about him, too, somewhere round here. They have been cruel to him, Mama. But I don’t understand most of what they’ve been talking about in those papers. Make it better, Mama, please? I promise I won’t be angry with you. Just… **please** …”

 

He calls her _Mama_.

 

Before a most-likely dead person, who she _knows_ – even before Doshka’s little _chilling_ spill – has been tortured beyond belief.

 

After she has woken up from a _very close_ brush with death and a loss of the only home she has known.

 

“God makes straight with crooked lines,” the Christian Bible says, and she has been wanting to understand that bit of seemingly nonsensical thing she found there.

 

Now she _doesn’t_ , but she _has_ , oh she has _understood_.

 

As she cries into Doshka’s hair, unable to utter her apologies to him in any shape or form, unable to tell him that it may have been too late for his silent friend in the ice these two days to be rescued, she wonders what the little boy will make of having such a weakling for a mother.

 

Well, right now, she cannot care less about this one, either.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into the Marvel universe, and I haven't posted this work anywhere. So, please, readers, give me comments, and I shall endeavour both to reply to you and to better the work. Above all, though, thank you so much for reading.  
> Rey


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